Not by ‘Vande Bharat’ alone

Source- The post is based on the article “Not by ‘Vande Bharat’ alone” published in “The Hindu” on 28th April 2023.

Syllabus: GS3- Infrastructure

Relevance– Issues related to railway

News– The article explains the overemphasis on Vande Bharat trains

What are the issues with railways in India?

The Annual Plan outlay of the Indian Railways was ₹1,09,935 crore in 2016-17 in the last Railway Budget. It has increased to ₹2,60,200 crore in the Budget for 2023-24. This is an increase of 137%

unprecedented levels of investment to build rail infrastructure are a welcome development. But these investments must translate into concrete progress towards capacity building.

There are issues related to passenger and freight traffic. The rail share of freight carried was reduced from 51.5.% in 2008-09 to 32.4% in 2018-19 for leads over 300 km. Almost the entire increase in volume of traffic carried by rail over the decade 2008-09 to 2018-19 has been in short lead traffic.

55% of the increase was through the transport of just one commodity, that is coal. The higher levels of traffic being achieved is not accompanied by diversification of commodities.

There are issues related to punctuality. Published statistics for punctuality usually are above 90%. But these figures are adjusted and only the destination arrival time is considered.

More than a decade ago, an exercise was undertaken to know the status of all passenger trains in the Indian Railways network on a real time basis. The punctuality of all passenger-carrying trains at any given time hovered around 60%.

What is the way forward to improve the performance of the Indian railway?

The National Rail Plan 2030 envisages raising the rail share in freight traffic vis-à-vis roadways from 27% to 45% by 2050. It calls for raising the average speed of goods trains to 50 kilometres per hour from the present 25 kmph and reduction in tariff rates for freight by up to 30%.

There is a need for a radical shift in punctuality. Stations in the Indian Railways network can be remodelled to ‘international standards. Japanese Railways reckon the punctuality of their high-speed trains in seconds. The Indian Railways should aim to be at least within five minutes of the scheduled time.

There is a need to move away from the traditional concept of destination punctuality and evolve an index of punctuality that will also reflect the punctuality at select intermediate stations. With developments in IT and data analytics, this should be possible.

The government should consider tabling an annual report on the performance of the Railways in Parliament on the lines of the annual Economic Survey prepared by the Finance Ministry ahead of the General Budget.